


If The Archivist Had Been Meant To Fly....

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Crying, M/M, Monster!Jon, Scopophobia, So Many Eyes, Wingfic, apocalypse boyfriends, falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: “You still have hope! I can see it there in your eyes!” Simon sounds delighted. “Oh, you are much more resilient than Peter gave you credit for. You think your Archivist will come for you?” Simon gestures towards the perfect, endless sky. “Even if he does find a way in, there’s only one way he can go. The same way you’re going.” Simon chuckles smugly, eyes shining. “After all, if the Archivist had been meant to fly, he would have been given wings!”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 124
Kudos: 1179
Collections: TMA Fics





	If The Archivist Had Been Meant To Fly....

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dathen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dathen/gifts).



> For @dathen, because this fic is 100% percent their fault, what with their Tumblr posts about how Jon should have wings. It is the best blame.

Time when you’re falling is usually measured in how long it will take before you hit the ground. When there’s no ground however, when you’re falling through a space that is endless, a perfect blue broken only by occasional wisps of clouds, well, you have to find other ways. How long can a person scream before their voice breaks? Martin’s been falling longer than that. He doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty or tired, but maybe that’s because there’s no room for those things past the fear, past the wind stinging his face or his frantic, gasping breaths.

Martin had always heard that when someone fell from a great height that it was fear that killed them before they hit the ground. He understands how that could be the case. A human heart was not meant to beat so fast, so hard, so long. A human mind was not meant to process endless, unwaning terror. If he could pass out for a few hours, even if he woke up still falling, at least that would be a respite. But even that poor excuse for a rest is denied him.

Oddly enough it’s the _inconsistency_ that’s the worst part of the experience. (That’s not true of course, the worse part is that he is lost, lost again in an empty uncaring space all alone, but he is trying very hard not to focus on that.) If the speed at which he fell remained the same, if the winds that blew against him were always icy or always warm, maybe he could get used to the sensations. But that would not generate fear, of course. So sometimes it almost doesn’t feel like he’s falling at all, and that’s even worse than when he’s falling faster than mere things like physics should allow. When he’s barely falling he’s filled with sick anticipation, the heavy dread of knowing that at any moment he’ll be speeding downwards once more. When he’s plummeting so fast that he can barely breathe, barely see, he’s waiting for the impact that will never come. He doesn’t want to die, he _doesn’t_ , but oh how he wants this to _stop._

Martin goes from some unimaginable velocity to slow, eerie, almost weightlessness again, a feeling so nauseating and terrible and wrong that he can feel his body dry heaving as his brain desperately tries to find equilibrium. Closing his eyes doesn’t help, not really, but Martin does it anyway, feeling a few tears leak out from the corners of his eyes to slide down cheeks that have been both burned and numbed by the wind.

“Hello Martin.”

Martin doesn’t have a voice to yell with, so what comes out of his mouth is an embarrassing rasping squeak of a thing, like trying to scream in a nightmare, as his eyes fly open, as he tries to flinch away from the voice, sudden and familiar.

The last time Martin had seen Simon Fairchild had been at the Institute, where they’d had a conversation that had been one part useful and three parts frustrating. Simon is sitting in front of him just as he had back then, except of course that he is sitting on nothing, falling at the same gentle speed that Martin is now, keeping pace with Martin’s descent. Also, just as he had been back then, Simon is grinning, and the sight of it sets Martin’s teeth on edge, anger finding a space next to fear.

Simon chuckles. “Oh, that look you’re giving me right now. So _defiant._ ” He snaps his fingers and Martin plummets as gravity reasserts itself more forcefully upon him.

“That’s better,” Simon says with a smile. He’s still falling at the same speed as Martin, but the air rushing past him doesn’t do so much as ruffle his hair. It’s like something out of a cartoon, something that would be amusing in that context but is surreal and obscene in reality. Though the wind rushing past Martin’s ears should drown out all other sounds, he hears Simon as clearly as if they were having a casual chat in a cafe. “The look of surprise and fear just as you started to fall is much more suited to you. It’s the same look you had when I pushed you. Do you remember?” His smile widens. “You’ve been falling for _such_ a long time from your perspective. It might have slipped your mind.”

Martin _does_ remember, though it’s hard to make his brain think of anything else when it’s constantly screaming at him that he’s falling and he’s going to die. He remembers the hill. He remembers Jon sleeping next to him, their two sleeping bags zipped together. He remembers the sky brightening as dawn approached, the multitude of eyes scattered across the sky like clouds. He remembers the shove that had happened while he had been stretching and off balance, and how it had reminded him of being bullied on the playground in primary school. He had braced himself for impact with the ground, but that impact had never come.

“I must admit that I wish you’d been some place a little higher up at the time. An abandoned building maybe, or at the very least a taller hill. Ah well. Beggars can’t be choosers I suppose.” He gives a little shrug. “Are you wondering why you’re here?”

Martin shakes his head. He remembers Simon threatening to throw him off of something “just for a joke” if they ever met again.

“No?” Simon looks away from Martin, stares out into the endless sky, his smile falling from his face in degrees. “Your Archivist _ruined_ the sky.”

For a moment, Martin can’t think of what Simon means, and then he remembers the eyes, ever present, ever watching, scattered across the sky like malevolent stars.

“Well, to be fair, Jonah had his hand in that. Both hands really. But Jonah is— unassailable at the moment, while the Archivist is _so_ very vulnerable. Or rather, _you_ make him so very vulnerable.” The grin has returned now as Simon looks at Martin once more. “Your Archivist ruined something I love, so I took something _he_ loves. I wonder if he can See you here.” Simon’s grin grows wider. “Oh, I hope he can.”

Martin can’t help but imagine Jon waking up and finding him gone. Would he Know what happened? Would he be able to See? If Jon Knew where he was, could he—?

“You still have hope! I can see it there in your eyes!” Simon sounds delighted. “Oh, you are _much_ more resilient than Peter gave you credit for. You think your Archivist will come for you?” Simon gestures towards the perfect, endless sky. “Even if he _does_ find a way in, there’s only one way he can go. The same way you’re going.” Simon chuckles smugly, eyes shining. “After all, if the Archivist had been meant to fly, he would have been given wings!”

Once, when Martin had been small, he had seen a pigeon get struck down by a hawk. The death of the small creature had been upsetting, but it had been the _suddenness_ of the whole thing that had made young Martin cry. One moment everything had been peaceful, and then there had been a blur and everything had turned into blood and feathers.

That pigeon is the first thing Martin thinks of when a grey and black blur of _something_ streaks by him and collides with Simon. Martin instinctually closes his eyes but he can still hear Simon’s truncated shout, hears the **crack** of two bodies impacting. When he opens his eyes again, looking down, all he sees are two distant specks of color that are quickly lost in the clouds below.

_It has to be Jon_ , Martin’s mind insists even as it tells him that this is the end, that he’s going to die. _It has to be Jon, except it_ ** _can’t_** _be Jon, if it was Jon then he was falling too, falling endlessly, so it_ ** _can’t_** _be Jon except it has to be Jon but it_ ** _can’t_** _—_

The thoughts repeat as Martin continues falling, hope and fear warring with each other as he stares downward. With no way to measure time it could be seconds or eons before he sees the impossible, sees something _rising_ , that same blur of black and grey moving impossibly, dangerously fast, heading straight towards him. Martin makes a croaking wheeze of a scream as their bodies connect. His brain insists that he is dead, he is dying, he is broken, he has been turned into nothing but atoms and mist by colliding with something at this speed, even as all he feels is arms around him as he is held closely but firmly, his face pressed against a chest that even in his panic and fear he recognizes. He tries to say Jon’s name but all that comes out is gasping breaths, his lips mouthing the single, treasured syllable over and over again.

“ _You’re safe.”_ It’s a statement of fact that echoes in Martin’s brain, in the blood and bones and heart of him and he nearly sobs as relief washes through him like rainwater.

“ _You’re safe_.” Jon’s voice sounds strange, some sort of hum or hiss growing beneath his words. Martin tries to lift his head, to look into Jon’s eyes, but relief has brought exhaustion with it, left him weak and trembling.

“ _Rest.”_

Martin’s eyes close and he doesn’t fight it. Why should he? Jon has him. Somehow, impossibly, Jon has him. He is safe. He is safe and he should rest and so he does, the only falling he’s doing now is falling unconscious as together the two of them rise.

———

Martin shifts in his sleep, wincing slightly at the sting of his cheek from where fabric is rubbing against it. It feels like sunburn, but he’s normally so careful about applying sunscreen, even now when the sun’s light is muted and dim.

_Windburn_ , Martin’s mind supplies, and there is a blissful moment where Martin doesn’t know why he thought that before the memories come rushing back, so forceful that Martin sits up with a gasp. Falling. He had been falling, and Jon—

Jon is staring at him from across embers of a nearly burnt out campfire, though he is not using the eyes Martin had fallen in love with so long ago, those warm brown eyes ringed with deep green like a forest in shadow. Those eyes are closed, long lashes resting against his cheeks, as if he were sleeping. The four new eyes on Jon’s face glow the yellow-green of a sky before a thunderstorm, shining on Jon’s cheekbones like tears, unblinking.

The sight of that alone is enough to cause Martin’s heart to race, but it’s not what causes his breath to catch in his throat, to wonder if he is dreaming or dead or finally given into madness. No, it’s the wings that do that, the high arch of them outlined with eyes that glow as brightly as the ones on Jon’s face, their light illuminating feathers that are almost as black as the night sky behind them before shading out to a silver-grey that shines like the stars in the sky had done before the world went wrong.

_His wings are the same color as his hair_ , Martin thinks, then immediately claps a hand over his mouth to stop the hysterical giggles he can feel trying to bubble up his throat. He knows then that he is not dreaming, because in the dreams he’s had where Jon’s had wings, well, his imagination has always gone a bit classical, a bit mundane really, white wings, two eyes, significantly less clothing—

Martin steps on the thought before it can go any further, taking his hand away from his mouth. None of Jon’s eyes track the movement, and Martin realizes that while all those eyes are pointed in his direction, they don’t seem to be looking at him, and Jon’s face hasn’t changed expression the entire time Martin’s been staring at Jon staring at him, his face a mask of quiet contemplation.

“Jon?” Martin’s voice is a broken rasp of a thing, words made painful from hour or days or years of screaming in an endless sky. He maneuvers himself out of his sleeping bag, never taking his eyes away from Jon’s face, and crawls closer to where Jon sits. Jon still doesn’t move, doesn’t react, and only the sound of his breathing, slow and gentle, tells Martin that Jon is even alive.

“Jon?” Martin feels his own breathing speed up as his heart pounds in his ears, as he feels himself starting to shake as if he were freezing. He had felt fear in the Vast, fear that he would fall forever, but the fear he’s feeling now is worse, the fear that Jon is somehow _gone_ —

Suddenly all of Jon’s eyes (except the ones that are closed, the pair Martin wants to see most) flare a brighter green, all turning to look at him. Martin feels himself freeze like a rabbit in a field sensing the presence of a hawk as those eyes regard him as remotely as if Martin were a feature of the landscape, a tree perhaps, or an interestingly shaped rock.

_“Martin Blackwood. The Anchor. You have nothing to fear from the Archive.”_

It’s a statement of fact that goes in Martin’s ears and straight to his brain. Martin feels his breathing grow steadier, his shaking subside and his heartbeat slow before he realizes what’s happening, before his heart begins to pound and his breathing quicken for an entirely different reason, to express an entirely different emotion, one adjacent to fear. Anger. He remembers kneeling on the floor of the safehouse in Scotland the day the world had ended, Jon crying and shaking in his arms as Martin had read the pages of the statement that had been fluttering around the room like carrion crows.

_Because the thing about the Archivist is that – well, it’s a bit of a misnomer. It might, perhaps, be better named: The Archive._

“Where’s Jon?” Martin asks the thing in front of him, the Archive, the words coming out as an angry hiss.

_“The Archivist is lost in the Archive_ ,” the Archive says. It _sounds_ like Jon, or rather, it sounds like _recordings_ of Jon, the words carrying the hiss and hum that reminds Martin of piling tape recorders on top of a coffin, of Jon’s words echoing off each other. But there is no _personality_ in the voice he hears coming out of the Archive’s mouth, no warmth and certainly no lo-fi charm.

“I don’t understand,” Martin says. “And stop talking like— like that! Stop compelling me or whatever it is you’re doing!”

_“The Archive cannot change how it speaks,”_ the Archive says. _“The Archive’s words carry the weight of Absolute Truth.”_

“Nothing is absolute, especially truth,” Martin mutters, even as he feels himself wanting to agree with what The Archive is saying. It’s still a kind of compulsion, possibly even more dangerous than the kind Jon had been trying not to use, but knowing about it should help him fight against it he hopes. “Where’s Jon?”

_“The Archivist is lost in the Archive,”_ the Archive says again, in exactly the same tone as it had before.

“That doesn’t _tell_ me anything!” Martin snaps, though he thinks perhaps it does. Because his mind has gone to the Distortion, hasn’t it? The Distortion who had been Michael and was Helen, to whatever degree something like that could _be_ anyone. “And his name is Jon! Jonathan Sims!”

“ _His name_ ** _was_** _Jonathan Sims_ ,” the Archive says. _“Then he Became the Archivist, before completing his apotheosis into the Archive.”_ The Archive’s wings shift a bit on the last word, as if to emphasize that point.

Apotheosis. Martin doesn’t have the master’s in  parapsychology he’d lied about on his CV, but it’s a word that he’s come across more than once in his time as a research assistant. Apotheosis: the highest point in the development of something. Or, as he had seen it used more often: the elevation of someone to divine status. He opens his mouth to argue, then closes it again. He’s not going to get into an argument with something that can make him believe words just by speaking them.

_I should be recording this_ , Martin thinks. _Jon would have wanted me to record this._ There’s a tape recorder in Jon’s bag, but in the second it takes him to think about retrieving it he realizes that it’s right there next to him. Martin picks it up and puts it in his lap, one hand stroking along the casing, his thumb worrying at the grooves where some twisted creation of the Flesh had clawed at it. Jon would have probably chuckled at the fact that Martin was petting the tape recorder like it was some sort of mechanical kitten, but the Archive only stares at him, expression unchanging.

_“The Archivist left you a message,”_ the Archive says, just as the tape recorder’s play button presses itself with a click.

There’s a moment of not quite silence, the hum and hiss of the tape, something rustling in the background. Then Jon’s voice issues forth. It’s rough as if he had been crying or screaming, but it’s _Jon._

“Martin. Martin, I—“ Martin hears Jon clears his throat. “Martin, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t See this coming.”

“Jon, it’s not your fault,” Martin whispers, hands tightening slightly on the recorder.

“I can See you falling, Martin. I can See you falling and I— I think I Know how to save you. It’s something that wouldn’t have been possible before, but things have changed now.” Jon’s chuckle is dry and humorless. “Oh yes, how things have changed. And I— I can change too. It’s all about need and fear. I have need. And there is _so_ much fear, Martin.” Jon’s voice sounds a bit dreamy, almost a singsong. “Your fear and my fear and the fear of everyone in the world.”

“Jon—“ Martin says futilely, as if he could tell Jon in the past to stop, as if the evidence of what he has done isn’t sitting across from him now.

“All I have to do is open myself up,” Jon continues. “Open myself up to everything I’ve been keeping out. All the fear, all the Knowledge, _everything,_ let it change me, let it shape me. But there’s a risk that once I do that, once I let everything come flooding in— that I might— drown, I guess you could say. That once that door inside me is opened it might never be closed again. Martin, if this works, if you’re listening, if I’m not _me_ anymore— this isn’t your fault. I need you to know that. This isn’t your fault. I made this choice.”

“Jon—“ Martin stares down at the tape recorder, watching his tears fall on the plastic.

“I love you, Martin,” Jon says softly. “Hang on. I’m going to come catch you.”

The tape recorder clicks off, and for a moment there is only silence.

“ _Do you want to See what happened next?”_

Martin shakes his head. He does not need to see Jon’s body change, he can imagine it well enough. The wings erupting from his back, unfolding, the eyes opening amongst the feathers and never closing, mirroring the new eyes on Jon’s face that follow the trails of his tears, that glow with the same light as the eyes in the sky. He would have had that determined scowl on his face, the one he always got when he was trying to puzzle out a statement.

_“The Archivist held on to his sense of self for an improbable length of time,”_ the Archive says quietly. _“Past the point of saving you. He was very strong.”_

Martin looks up just in time to see the landscape around him change to an empty campsite, the dim light of the sky fading into dusk. He’s experienced being Shown things before and he cannot look away, even though he ha not asked for this.

Jon descends from the sky, terrible and beautiful, holding Martin in his arms. He stumbles a bit as he lands, breathing heavily, the eyes of the Archive seeming to brighten and dim with his breathing. Jon’s own eyes are still open, though only halfway. He tucks Martin into their sleeping bag, builds up the fire. Every so often he pauses, looking at something only he can see, eyelids drooping closed, only to widen again with a shudder as Jon shakes himself out of his fugue. Every time Jon pauses it takes him longer to snap himself out of it, every time his eyes open less and less wide. By the time Jon goes to sit near Martin, his eyes are merely slits, while the Archive’s eyes glow even more brightly.

“Martin.” Jon’s voice is so soft as he reaches out to touch Martin’s cheek. “All I want to look at is you, but there’s so much to See. Too much. I— Martin, I—“ Jon’s eyes slip closed, and this time they do not open again.

_“There’s so much to See,”_ the Archive says to the sleeping Martin.

The vision fades and Martin wipes away his tears with the heel of his hand. “Was that meant to _comfort_ me somehow?”

_“Yes.”_

Martin looks into the unblinking eyes of the Archive. “Why? Why are you trying?”

_“The Archivist’s need to save you and his fear that he could not was what helped create the Archive. The Archivist is lost, but his love for you is in the blood and bones and breath of me.”_

“Lost.” Martin says, the word heavy in his mouth. “You could just say _gone._ ” He feels anger and grief rise in his throat like bile. “You could just say _dead._ ”

_“I cannot.”_

Martin stares at the Archive, feeling hot and cold all at once. “Why?” He feels hope wash over him so powerfully that he almost feels sick with it as he comes to a realization. “You can’t say he’s gone, you can’t say he’s dead, because those things aren’t _true._ ”

“ _The Archivist is lost in the Archive,”_ the Archive says again.

“I can bring him back,” Martin says, and he doesn’t phrase it as a question, as something that might have an answer he would not agree with. He stands up, the Archive standing up as well, and begins to pace, filled with nervous energy. _Lost isn’t gone. Lost isn’t dead. I should have known that, I should have. I was lost in the Lonely. I was lost in the Vast. Jon and Daisy were lost in the Buried. We all got out. We were all found._

_“You are his Anchor,”_ the Archive says, as if that’s an answer, except it is. It _is._

_“_ You can See everything?” Martin whispers. He barely has any voice left, and suddenly it’s vitally important that he not lose it.

_“Yes.”_

“And Jon is in you, and _he_ is Seeing everything. He said that there was so much to See.”

_“Yes.”_

Martin stops pacing and stands in front of the Archive. His hands don’t shake as he reaches out and cups the Archive’s face in his hands, mindful of the eyes along its cheeks, though he is terrified. _Need and fear_ , Martin thinks as he looks into Jon’s closed eyes. _Well I certainly have both. “_ Then See me. See _just_ me.”

It’s like having his life flash before his eyes, but it’s _everything._ Every thought, every action, every memory, everything scrutinized, laid bare without anything to soften it. The Archive’s unblinking gaze burns in Martin’s mind like a laser, the pain of being Seen so completely is agonizing, terrifying, endless, and there is a reason that the Beholding is so powerful, so feared. Martin bears that fear and pain as he has borne so many things in his life and begins to speak. He does not waste precious seconds thinking about what he’s going to say. His mind is only human, can only stand so much. This might be the only chance he has to do this.

“Jon. It’s me, it’s Martin. Come back to me. Follow my voice.” Martin imagines his words as the light in a lighthouse to lead sailors back home, the silver thread that lead Theseus out of the maze, the red string of fate that binds two souls together, the chain of an anchor that a drowning man could follow to the surface. Does he imagine that Jon’s eyelids twitch, the eyes beneath moving as if he were dreaming? It reminds him of how he had pleaded with Jon at his bedside when Jon had been in a coma, how he had stared at Jon for hours looking for any signs that he was waking up.

“I remember hearing your voice in the Lonely, how it drew me to you even when I was lost, when I thought I didn’t want to be found. Follow my voice now, come find me again. We’ve— we’ve spent so many years giving away pieces of ourselves for the people we care about, but saving someone shouldn’t have to mean losing yourself in the process. Saving me shouldn’t mean losing you. So come back to me. _Find_ me. I’m here. I’m here so you have to be here too.”

“Martin?” Jon’s voice is a weak, trembling thing. Tears spill out from under his closed eyes and Martin refuses to blink, as if the spell will be broken if he stops looking at Jon. He feels the terrifying gaze of the Archive lessen, and hopes that it’s a good sign.

“I’m here Jon.” He has a sudden impulse to kiss Jon’s closed eyes and so he does, tasting salt on his lips. When he pulls away he sees Jon looking back at him, the eyes Martin had written endless poems about shining with tears, the Archive’s eyes glowing only as brightly as fireflies in summer now, their power no longer focused solely on him. “There you are.”

“There you are,” Jon echoes quietly, voice no longer shaking, eyes open wide. “Here I am.”

Martin blinks his burning eyes as Jon pulls him close, embracing him with both arms and wings, feathers brushing against his back, as comforting as Martin had always imagined it in his dreams. When dawn comes they are both still standing there, holding each other, whispering reassurances into each other’s skin.

———

“Martin?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re staring.”

Martin quickly averts his eyes from Jon’s and concentrates on trying to chew his mouthful of breakfast bar into submission without getting crumbs on the sleeping bags the two of them are sitting on. The food bars are something they scavenged from the same camping supply store they got their sleeping bags from and the wrapper had promised that it was a delicious way to obtain all the calories and nutrition needed for a day of hiking. Martin wonders what definition of “delicious” the ad writers had been working of off.

“Sorry,” he says when he finally manages to swallow. “I’m just— are you _sure_ you aren’t hungry?” Martin had been ravenous once fear had no longer had a hold on him, not to mention thirsty and exhausted. “You’re not just saying that so you don’t have to choke down one of these—“ Martin reads the wrapper. “Cashew Mango Delight bars? Oh really now, this is hardly delightful.”

Martin had been hoping for a chuckle from Jon, or at least a smile, but all he gets is a brief twitch of Jon’s lips and a shifting of his wings. “I don’t think I need food anymore. Not— not like that anyway. Everyone’s fear— I can still feel it, I can still See….”

Jon’s eyes go distant, half closing as his other eyes, what Martin still thinks of as the Archive’s eyes, suddenly shine more brightly. Martin’s hand quickly darts across the space between them, grabbing Jon’s hand and holding it tight.

“It’s all right,” Jon says, and there is only the slightest hint of fading tape hiss in his voice as his eyes open fully and fix on Martin’s. “I’m still here.” He squeezes Martin’s hand gently. “I think— I think I could learn how to See what— what the Archive Sees and still hold on to myself. I think there’s a lot I could learn how to do.”

“Not today, Jon,” Martin pleads. He understands that control is important to learn, but he’s _so_ tired.

“Not today,” Jon agrees.

Martin sighs with relief and takes another bite of the awful hiking bar. Another few minutes pass before Jon clears his throat.

“I guess I’m not too terrible to look at, as far as monsters go,” Jon says quietly. “You’re staring again.”

Martin almost chokes in his haste to swallow. “Jon, you’re not—“

Jon gives Martin a pointed look and spreads his wings, the eyes on them glinting in the morning light. “I look like _this_ and I can compel people to say things against their will, _believe_ things against their will now. I haven’t told you how Simon Fairchild ended up.”

Martin hasn’t forgotten how all this has started, but he has to admit that the possible fate of Simon Fairchild had entirely slipped his mind. “What did you—“

“I told him he was buried in the Choke,” Jon says. “I was _very_ convincing, what with all my real life experience to draw on.” There’s an edge to Jon’s voice, something that makes Martin think of the Lonely, of the remains of Peter Lukas, red blood mixing with white sea foam and grey fog. “An avatar of the Vast, believing himself to be in the Buried, well. It ended badly for him.”

“Good,” Martin says, even though a little part of him thinks that maybe he’s not supposed to be happy when people die. He thinks exceptions can be made for terrible people who try to kill you, or do worse than trying to kill you. “I’m not going to call you a monster, Jon, not ever, and certainly not for how you look. I mean—“ Here he falters. “I mean, you have to know.”

Jon tilts his head slightly, and Martin gets the impression that he would blink all of his eyes if he could. “Know what?”

Martin feels the heat of a blush creeping up his neck. “You Saw me. Everything about me. Things I’ve thought… and dreamt…”

“I was mostly concentrating on getting back to you,” Jon says, sounding puzzled. “The fine details—“ He pauses, the Archive’s eyes flaring bright for a second before dimming. Jon’s own eyes widen a fraction. “Oh. Really?”

Martin ducks his head, resisting the sudden, tempting urge to find out if he can still pull off the trick of being somewhere that other people aren’t. “I mean, the eyes are going to take some getting used to, but the wings are—“ He closes his mouth before the rest of the words can escape.

Martin doesn’t realize he’s still holding Jon’s hand until he feels it being squeezed, soft and reassuring. When he manages to look up, Jon is smiling fondly at him, though his eyes still hold a bit of puzzlement.

“It’s all right,” Jon says. “I mean, I don’t quite understand it, but finding my wings, well, _attractive_ is better than finding them frightening.” He spreads the wings in question slightly. “You can touch them, if you want.”

“You’re sure?” Martin asks, one hand already halfway outstretched.

“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise,” Jon says. “Go on.”

Martin watches Jon’s face carefully as he places a hand on the upper arch of Jon’s wing, making sure to be very careful of the eyes dotted there as he begins to run his hand along the feathers, but the only change in Jon’s expression is that the fondly indulgent cast to his features softens further into genuine contentment.

“How does it feel?”

Jon tips his head back slightly, closing his eyes. “It’s nice. Like Scotland.”

The image that comes to Martin is a memory, though his own or Jon’s who can say. An afternoon by the fire, Jon curled up against Martin’s chest, Martin running his hands through Jon’s hair. Martin closes his own eyes and leans against Jon, basking in the memory of that easy peace, of safety and warmth, his hand still moving along Jon’s feathers, marveling at how they feel, soft yet strong.

“You should get some sleep,” Jon says gently. “And I suppose I should find out if that’s even something I can do anymore.”

“I don’t think you’re going to fit in the sleeping bag,” Martin mutters, not opening his eyes. “With your wings and all.”

Martin turns out to be right, though Jon tries his hardest to make it work, then tries even harder to come up with an alternative that means they can both be warm and comfortable and touching each other. They end up in a sort of nest of comprised of the partially unzipped sleeping bags and several survival blankets, one of Jon’s wings curled over Martin like a blanket or a shield.

Martin sighs into Jon’s chest, reaching out for one of Jon’s hands, entwining their fingers together. It’s different from their usual sleeping arrangement, with Jon all but wedging himself under Martin’s arm in a sheltering embrace, but it’s not a bad difference.

“You’ll still be you when I wake up?” Martin asks sleepily.

Jon brushes a kiss to Martin’s forehead. “If I’m not, you’ll find me again.” It’s not the voice of the Archive, but the words have the weight of absolute truth, of absolute belief behind them. “And I’ll find you. Always.”

“Always,” Martin agrees, closing his eyes. Feeling utterly protected, utterly safe in the warmth of Jon’s arms and under the shelter of his wing, Martin sleeps and does not dream of falling.

**Author's Note:**

> Considering how much I love wingfic, you think I'd write more of it.
> 
> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [housed by your warmth (thus transformed)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22597249) by [Dathen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dathen/pseuds/Dathen)




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